Page:Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America.djvu/352

322 camp, been for some time subsisting on scraps of skin and roasted leather. The able hunters, he informed us, had been obliged to separate from the old people who brought this misery upon them, and proceed south-eastward to the Coppermine River; while the unfortunate dupes of their own folly, about twenty in number, were left in a pitiable condition at the head of M'Tavish Bay. We lost no time in sending them a large bag of pounded meat, reserved for making pemican in the spring, which saved them from absolute starvation; and, with Sinclair's assistance, they rejoined our hunters near the Coppermine, whose services were consequently lost to us for the remainder of the season. Independent of frequent passing relief we had, in the same month, the satisfaction of saving the lives of two old women and two little girls at the establishment. The latter especially, when brought in, were so weak as to be scarcely able to stand; but by care and kindness they recruited fast, and all remained with us till late in the spring. In short, the winter was one continued term of anxiety on our part for the natives around us; while our stock of food at the fort was, by the opening of March, almost entirely expended, our men having to perform journeys of two and three weeks' duration to the southward, where alone